midnight soufflé

Chik is crazy. So am I, I guess. He talked me into making this at midnight. It was pretty heavenly if I do say so myself. We found the recipe for this Grand Marnier soufflé on Epicurious and had to change it up a bit. If a little is good, more is better, right? That’s how I roll anyway. Don’t feel obligated to make this at midnight. I’m sure it would taste good any time of the day. Chik has some cool individual soufflé dishes that are probably from France. I’ll use those next time.

Simple Syrup

To make the simple syrup: Bring 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of water to a boil. Stir the sugar to dissolve. Now you have simple syrup.

In a small bowl, mix butter and flour to form a paste.

Split vanilla bean in half and scrape out seeds. Add milk, vanilla bean and seeds to a large saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Remove from heat and whisk in butter-flour mixture. Return to moderate heat and whisk until thickened and smooth, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and whisk in egg yolks, Grand Marnier and simple syrup.

Whisk in 1/4 of the egg whites to lighten the soufflé base. Gently fold in the remaining egg whites. Add the batter to your soufflé dish. Bake until puffed, about 25-30 minutes. Serve immediately. Maybe with a dollop whipped cream spiked with Grand Marnier, or vanilla bean ice cream, or dust it with powdered sugar.

Greg Schroeder, owner of Amazing Grapes Wine store

Greg says: Grand Marnier and Tawny Ports are blended in many drinks, so it only seems natural that they’ll play nicely with this dessert. Try the Taylor Fladgate 10 year old Tawny Port. The creamy caramel punctuates a dark cherry and burnt cinnamon dance on the front of the tongue, followed by notes of currants and smokey raisins. Loads of maple syrup on top and pecan pralines on the bottom. Delicious!

Turley’s beauty shot. She’s not all that bad. It’s been days since she ate any of my shoes.